Both sides have to feel happy about this one. We’ve got the details on Derek Carr’s contract with the New Orleans Saints thanks to Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio, and it’s enlightening. While the new deal is being advertised as a four-year, $150 million commitment (and it does max out at those values), in reality Carr’s per-year earnings will fall to about half of that. Thanks to some creative accounting, the Saints structured this so that Carr’s 2023 salary cap hit is only about $7.2 million, taking up roughly 3.2% of the league spending limit. Carr got a no-trade clause out of the arrangement, which gives him some control in the second half of his career.
Florio reports that Carr received a $28.5 million signing bonus from New Orleans, which will toll over the course of five years (with a void year likely written into 2027 for accounting purposes). Most interesting is the non-guaranteed $50 million base salary written in for 2026. That raises the overall average per-year income from $33.3 million to $37.5 million per year, boosting Carr from ranking 12th among quarterbacks to 9th. That $50 million is funny money, though, and it’ll either be wiped out in an eventual release or else be restructured into a signing bonus on a new deal.
